A few hours after state Democratic Chairman Tom Collins told the Review-Journal that the party had no plans to cancel an August presidential candidate debate that was to be co-sponsored by the Fox News Channel, he and Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., sent a letter to Fox canceling the debate and blaming comments by the channel's president for the decision.
"Comments made last night by FOX News President Roger Ailes in reference to one of our presidential candidates went too far," the letter read. "We cannot, as good Democrats, put our party in a position to defend such comments."
Ailes, in a Thursday speech to the Radio & Television News Directors Foundation, made a comment playing on the similarity of Illinois Sen. Barack Obama's name to that of Osama bin Laden.
According to a transcript provided by Fox, Ailes said: "And it is true that Barack Obama is on the move. I don't know if it's true that President Bush called Musharraf and said, 'Why can't we catch this guy?'"
The party's letter, addressed to Fox Executive Producer Marty Ryan, said that "in light of his (Ailes') comments, we have concluded that it is not possible to hold a Presidential debate that will focus on our candidates and are therefore canceling our August debate. We take no pleasure in this, but it is the only course of action."
The letter was sent via e-mail and fax not long after Collins, reached on his cell phone, denied plans for any such cancellation.
"I'm not dropping the debate," he said. "I'm not dropping Fox. The majority of the elected state party supports keeping this debate. That's the executive board and elected officials."
Party spokeswoman Kirsten Searer later said Collins was unaware of Ailes' remark when he made the comments.
"The letter was written afterwards," she said. "It was a whole different ballgame once he got the comments."
She said the cancellation had nothing to do with pressure from activists and bloggers who called for the party to drop Fox because they believe the channel is biased.
But the liberal activist group MoveOn.org Civic Action had sent out a media release earlier in the day announcing that the Nevada Democratic Party had decided to drop the Reno debate after a blogosphere-led protest.
The news also had been circulated widely and celebrated on liberal blogs, which cited "Democratic insiders" as their source.
MoveOn.org had for weeks been calling on the party to sever its partnership with Fox, which the group calls "a mouthpiece for the Republican Party."
The Democratic Party since had been hit with phone calls, e-mails, media attention and an online petition signed by more than 260,000 people, according to MoveOn.org.
Adam Green, a spokesman for MoveOn.org, said a representative from the party told the group early Friday that the debate would be canceled.
"He (Collins) isn't going on the record," Green said. "They're keeping the world in limbo."
A spokesman for Reid said the senator had no comment outside of the letter.
Fox Vice President David Rhodes said in a prepared statement that the party's decision showed MoveOn.org owns the Democratic Party in Nevada. "News organizations will want to think twice before getting involved in the Nevada Democratic Caucus which appears to be controlled by radical fringe out-of-state interest groups, not the Nevada Democratic Party," he said.
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Edwards announced earlier this week that he wouldn't attend the debate. He cited Fox as one of the reasons.
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson announced earlier on Friday that he also was backing out of the debate.
The party had said that working with Fox was a way to reach potential new voters. But bloggers and activists contended that Fox is a right-wing organ that shouldn't be treated as a legitimate news operation.
Nevada's Democratic caucus is scheduled for Jan. 19, after the Iowa caucus and before the New Hampshire primary.
